The Challenge of Distance – our webinar on rural places and Covid-19 chaired by Professor Sian Griffiths was a real success with over 150 delegates. We ran it in partnership with the NHS Confederation on 23 July. We are now working up ideas for a formal memorandum of understanding between the two organisations. You can access more information about the webinar content here.
A Growing Rural Agenda – we have been really pleased to build links over the last few weeks with Sara Bordoley at NHS E&I who has been looking, along with the colleagues at the Kings Fund at Rural and Coastal settings as examples of areas with distinctive health inequalities.
Next Steps for the Parliamentary Inquiry into Rural Health and Care – The next two evidence sessions for this Inquiry, where we act as Secretariat are on 25 August. We have two themes: social care, followed by mental health and well-being. If you are interested in attending let us know and we can extend an invitation. These will be the 10th and 11th sessions in the Inquiry which is now reaching its conclusion. Our detailed write up period will be over Christmas and we hope to have a first draft of the report ready early in 2021.
Local Covid Dashboard – with Nuffield Trust we are actively considering the demand, format and approach to the development of a local level dashboard which would help people in rural settings access up to date information not just about covid-19 but its impact more widely by presenting other associated secondary data. If you would like to be involved in a more detailed engagement with this project please let us know.